I was all excited this morning when, "Computers Make Students Better Test Takers" showed up in my email as a news story...the article itself is new (but not news) and the Boston College report it touts was released (and I blogged here on CTDT) back in January (insert big sigh here). The article has the aroma of an adversisement for Apple Computers, but I still like the methodology and the results from the Boston College study.
- My summation:
- Students who use computers to write, edit, and produce final writing assignments perform better when it comes time to write/perform at assessment times.
- Students who spend more time (or too much time) preparing PowerPoint presentations do not do as well... as my grandmother would say, "it's too much gravy and not enough meat and potatoes".
- Students who spend inordinate amounts of time using their computers for games...well, the become good gamers but perform even worse at assessment time
There is one quote in the article that has interesting implications:"Although this study finds some interesting effects of students' use of computers, teachers in this study generally did not use technology to teach," added BC researcher and study co-author Damian Bebell."
Back to my grandmother who spent her school teaching career in a one room school in rural Kentucky... I suspect that once her students had conquered the use of a writing utensil that she didn't spend a lot of time teaching her students how to use a writing utensil. Granted, most writing utensils of her day did not suffer from what Donald Norman calls "creeping featurism" (in reference to MS Word's rapidly expanding features). The point: we cannot ignore technology's impact on the classroom and the potential for learning, however, we need to reach a time when the computer is just another tool and NOT the focus of what there is to learn.
There is something else that is worthy of exploring in the computer for writing vs. the computer for PowerPoint presentation conversation: I remember the first time that one of my writing assignments chugged its way out of a printer looking like camera ready typesetting. That feeling of pride and satisfaction made an impression on me. Please note, I do not have any recollection of the content of that document, but the neat looking presentation was something that made me feel great about writing....and in some respects, that still holds true. I wonder if there is any research on the impact on how a paper 'looks' and (1)how students feel about the quality of the project (2) how/if the 'look' has an impact on the individual making an assessment?